


i see the moon

by hotelhaemoglobin



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Chief of Staff Edward Nygma, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mayor Oswald Cobblepot, Nursery Rhyme References, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Season/Series 03, Sickfic, Sleepy Cuddles, ed is very in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 15:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20084464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotelhaemoglobin/pseuds/hotelhaemoglobin
Summary: Oswald is sick.Ed is thinking about religion, the moon, and love.





	i see the moon

Nightfall is a blessing in the Van Dahl manor. Like some soft paraffin salve Ed would smooth over his worried lips, the Moon washes through the Victorian windows in a grand alabaster flood. He's always thought of the Moon as some secret confidant; a paramour in the sky to watch over him. When he was a child she'd speak to him, all silverish wisdom in the dead of night, humming down a melody. 

_ I see the moon _

_ And the moon sees me _

_ God bless the moon _

_ And God bless me _

Tonight, she does not sing for him. She is but a sliver, like furtive eyes, narrowed with suspicion at Ed as he lingers by the window. His hand hovers pitifully at the curtain. He regards her mulishly for as long as his eyes allow him, and then: _ Fine, you win._ Ed draws the curtains closed with a huff, and turns to face the room.

Oswald Cobblepot, The Penguin, lies with his back to Ed in his four-poster in the centre of the room. He is curled up in on himself as if he is holding a child or nursing a wound, like a clam sheltering its pearl. His breath, Ed notes, comes slower than he'd like it to - Oswald is asleep, of course, but his breathing is still abnormally laboured. _ Established medical history of bronchiolitis exacerbated by preterm birth and living in damp conditions as a child assumed pneumonic episodes possibly triggered by vulnerability to bacteria fever above 100.4° recorded also pulse check his pulse check his- _

A sharp breeze shudders down Ed's taut neck and spine, bringing him to his senses with sudden force. His hands are white-knuckling one of the bedposts, as if he's trying to choke the life out of it. _When did he cross the room?_

Ed's medical kit is strewn across every surface, sojourning within a few paces' reach while the mayor’s pitiful immune system demands attention at every juncture. Before falling asleep, he had petulantly spit out the thermometer for the third time in as many hours, ordering Ed to "stick his probes and pills" somewhere crude. So he'd cleared off, but only after ensuring Oswald had taken the right amount of medication, was propped up on enough pillows and had his humidifier switched on. 

Since when did he give enough of a fuck about anybody to make sure their humidifier was switched on?

_ Since Oswald saved Ed from the damp, screeching brutality of Arkham, had a hot meal and bath waiting for him, and left a candle burning by his bedside to soothe him to sleep. Since he held a knife to Ed's throat in his flat, all snarling unstable fury like a nuclear reactor, and bared such naked grief in his eyes that Ed was shaking from it. Since The Penguin fell at his feet a year ago and asked Ed, simply, to help him. _

It was fated then, and it's fated now.

He lies swathed in sheets and sleep, pallid but still ethereal in the ghoulish twilight. Like an oasis in the desert. A mirage. A siren. An _ angel._

Ed has never believed in a God. Far too young had he written off the teachings of his Catholic school as a vaudeville of conservative culture, closing his hands around the rosary and quietly reciting the transition metals instead of the litanies and Ave Marias he was told to. There was nothing in religion for him. Nothing but fanciful imaginings of women in stiff habits.

Yet here he stands, with his back to the door like the rabbit unknowingly about to meet the wolf. Watching the rise and fall of Oswald's chest. Watching the way his bottlemilk skin asks for nothing but to bathe in the moonshine. Wondering that if he were to touch that very skin, that beatific expanse of speckled velvet, would he hear those same sacred choruses that rose up in the cathedrals like smoke when he was just a child? Would the cries of gratitude, of adoration, of voices broken on salvation start to make a little more sense as he felt that ripple of softness stir underneath his touch? 

God, Oswald is _ ruining _ him. 

He's about to turn and march out of the room on a mission to put as much distance between himself and Oswald as possible, when he hears it. The softest of sounds. Just a murmur, ostensibly from some dream, quivering its way through his REM sleep. Nothing unusual.

But it's that one noise that fixes Ed to the spot like a pillar of salt. _Too late now, Lot, far too late_. He couldn’t move away if his life depended on it. And so he waits.

It happens again. Louder, but not loud. Oswald shifts ever so slightly in his bed, the satin of his pajama shirt glimmering in the otherworldly half-light. 

“Oswald?” Ed breathes, knowing he won’t reply, but saying it anyway. 

The smaller man moves again, dragging his sheets with him, caught in a dream the other side of reality. Ed catches sight of his expression. He looks troubled, as if he’s grieving some dying thing in his mind, intangible to anyone but him. 

Crossing that threshold, that invisible barrier he’d placed between himself and the side of Oswald’s bed, is a damned idea and he knows it. But Ed wants, _ needs _to soothe him back into a softer sleep, if for nothing but to cool his fever. 

With a shaking hand, so carefully, he reaches forward and pushes back the inky tendrils of Oswald’s hair that stick to his clammy skin. He doesn’t feel as blisteringly hot as he has done previously, to which Ed exhales long and slow in relief. Absently, looking down at the face of this seraphic man that he finds himself revering every single day, Ed drags his thumb across the skin of Oswald’s forehead. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he registers he’s never been so purposefully gentle with anything in his life. 

It’s Murphy’s law, then, that it makes Oswald stir to consciousness.

A firecracker shoots down Ed’s spine. He feels as if he’s been caught stealing as Oswald opens his eyes, slowly. 

“Ed?”

There are shivers chasing each other through his nervous system. Oswald’s voice is so soft, and he’s so lovely, and right _ there _but Ed had to ruin it, he just had to touch him and take that privilege that was never his, could never be his - 

“Ed.” 

He’s caught the hand that Ed was trying to retract from where it had stilled on Oswald’s shoulder. His eyes are made of mercury; searching, but languid.

“‘S so cold.” He shudders, a small smile on his face. He doesn’t let go of Ed’s hand.

“I - uh.” _ Breathe _. “I can go and close the windows for you, hang on.”

“No.” Oswald pulls him back as Ed tries to break away. He sounds more sobered in that moment than the taller man can bear, so he stops, and returns to where he was.

Oswald regards Ed. Ed regards Oswald. 

“C’mere.” Oswald pulls him again and suddenly Ed is moving - moving towards him as Oswald shuffles to the other side of the bed, and now Ed is in the space that Oswald was occupying just seconds ago, still warm from his heat and _ the King of Gotham is still holding his hand _ -

“I had a dream.”

Ed rests his head, tentatively, on the pillow beneath his head. “I heard you.” _ How is he here? How is he _ _ allowed _ _ to be here? _

His voice is shakier than he’d like, but truly, who could blame him?

“I was… on the edge of something,” Oswald continues, gesticulating drowsily with his free hand. There’s a furrow between his eyebrows. “Somethin’… big. Voices too. Could hear them all ‘round.”

“Just a fever dream,” Ed whispers. _ His _free hand is smoothing back Oswald’s hair from his forehead again, constraints from mere minutes ago evidently absolved. He can't help it. Under the sheets, his knees touch Oswald’s. 

“Yeah,” Oswald replies, seemingly content with that answer. The tension in his brow melts the more Ed soothes his fingers over it. 

He looks so sleepy with his heavy lids and slurring words, and he's so beautiful. Quitely, Ed wonders if Oswald will even recall this conversation in the morning. Is it terrible to indulge himself if he won’t?

Oswald moves again, closer, but in no real hurry with one foot still in a dream. He buries his head in Ed’s chest, stowed away under his chin like a cat, and winds one arm around his waist.

Ed stops breathing.

The panic sets in, just for a moment. He's ten years old again, being scolded for insolence underneath a window of luminescent colour. But then it ebbs away just as quickly, his eyes focusing on shapes in the dark, skin warming, heart swelling.

There’s something so transcendental about this. This one moment, tucked away from the rest of the world, with Oswald curled up to him and half-asleep already. Something that goes beyond simple explanation. There’s no words for this, this fragment of time broken away from reality, dark and warm and tender. This is the time that all the lost, forgotten memories escape to, dancing around by themselves where no one can see them. Nothing about it feels real or linear or sensical. 

And yet, it is.

Ed imagines what will happen in the morning. He imagines Oswald will have a great many things to say about this. A great many choked-off, awkward blusterings. And hell, as will Ed. But morning - oh, _ morning _, what an abstract concept, because right now could not be further from morning. From daylight. From reality. 

There's a breath on his neck as Oswald settles further into sleep, his cheek soft against Ed's collarbone. He can't stop himself from smiling, blissful in the face of the forever he'll make this last for. 

Ed has Oswald in his arms, and nothing could ever be wrong.

From between the curtains, the moon glows down on them.

_ I see the moon _

_ And the moon sees me _

_ God bless the moon _

_ And God bless me _

_ Please let the light _

_ That shines on me _

_ Shine on the one _

_ I love _

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading <3  
kudos & comments extremely appreciated  
i am @tabbyfucks on twitter come scream at me abt gotham


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